HUAMBO, Angola — A four-lane avenue separates the shelled ruins of the art deco Ruacana Cinema from Huambo's shiny new Chinese-built railway station, a symbol of the leaps Angola has made to recover from a devastating 27-year civil war that ended a decade ago. As Angolans prepare to go to the polls on Friday for only the second time since the end of the war, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos's ruling MPLA party reminds them daily of the rewards of peace and boasts of its reconstruction achievements. In power for nearly 33 years in Africa's second-largest oil producer after Nigeria, Dos Santos — who turned 70 Tuesday — is expected to lead his party to a one-sided election win thanks to his political dominance and his carefully cultivated official image as guarantor of Angola's peace and rebuilding. “We were at the abyss for a long time, now ... we can see the great gains," said Joao Limpinho, a government-employed signals manager at the railway terminal at Huambo, Angola's second city, 600 km southeast of Luanda. But, while big investments in construction and infrastructure have covered over many of the scars of war, critics and ordinary Angolans say widespread poverty and inequality are festering, unhealed sores. The reserved, inscrutable Dos Santos, Africa's second longest-serving leader after Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, faces accusations from opponents that he has squandered his country's huge oil wealth to enrich himself, his family and a small elite, while failing to deliver enough housing, education and jobs for most Angolans. Independently of how they vote on Friday, many ordinary citizens are unhappy and openly clamor for a better life. “We want schools for our children, we want work. I make 10,000 kwanzas (around $100) a month, my husband earns a miserable 20,000 kwanzas, and we have nothing left at the end of the month," said Tucha Manuel, a market fruit-seller in the capital Luanda, one of the most expensive cities in the world. Backed by an oil output boom, Angola has posted rapid growth. Between 2002 and 2008 the economy expanded by an average of 15 percent per year. A fall in oil prices caused growth to brake to 2.4 percent in 2009 and 3.4 percent the next year. After disappointing oil output due to technical problems last year, when the economy also grew 3.4 percent, GDP is expected to expand between 8 percent and 10 percent this year. The IMF says Angola's GDP per capita in 2010 was $4,328, among the highest in Africa. But rights groups like Global Witness and Human Rights Watch and local rights activists have leveled a barrage of criticism against Dos Santos and his ruling MPLA for failing to share the oil riches more equally among Angola's 18 million people. The rich-poor divide is glaringly visible across the nation. In Luanda, glossy skyscrapers and high-end shops and restaurants are close to sprawling, crowded, tin-roof shantytowns whose poor residents sell goods — from flip-flops to smartphones — on the streets. The mostly new road between Huambo and Benguela is flanked by dozens of villages composed of shacks whose residents have no electricity and still collect water from nearby streams. The MPLA says it has cut poverty levels from 68 percent of the population in 2002 to around 39 percent in 2009, but in its election campaigning the party and its leader have tried to respond to the popular demands for social improvements. “I am the first to admit the difficult reality that many families face. We will not stand and watch while there are situations of huge inequality in our land," Dos Santos told supporters in a campaign speech at the weekend. Opponents and critics say Dos Santos runs an opaque administration and virtual one-party state behind a facade of democracy, avoiding public scrutiny and suppressing dissent. According to a constitution approved in 2010, which was criticized by the opposition for increasing the president's powers, the head of the winning party in parliamentary elections becomes head of state, without the need for a separate ballot. UNITA, which won 10 percent of the vote in 2008, accused the ruling party then of rigging the polls and has spent much of the current campaign challenging preparations for the ballot. It says the MPLA is using the national election commission to undermine transparency in matters such as the publication of the electoral roll, vote-counting and transmission of results. “They will create tricks so that the vote that is counted is not the one we put in the ballot box," Samakuva said, adding that his party may lead a protest to the elections committee headquarters if its complaints are not addressed. The MPLA says the opposition parties are already making excuses for their weak national support. “As they say in football, we're still in the warm-up, the game hasn't even started and they're complaining about the referee," said Manuel Vicente, the MPLA's candidate for vice president. — Reuters
